Kim Geheb

Leader of WLE in the Greater Mekong Region

k.geheb(at)cgiar.org

Kim Geheb specializes in the research and development of natural resources management institutions for common property resources. He has sixteen years of experience conducting, implementing, managing and leading natural resources research-for-development projects in the developing world and draws on his experience from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, China and Vietnam. He holds a doctorate from the School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex, UK.

Contents authored by Kim Geheb

As dam construction surges across Southeast Asia’s Mekong region, major changes in river flows, sedimentation, and fisheries are taking place. WLE Greater Mekong has been compiling a free and publicly available Dam Observatory that collects data on planned and constructed hydropower and irrigation dams in four Southeast Asian river basins.

In June, WLE-Mekong published a series of maps identifying a massive range of dams across the major rivers of the Greater Mekong Subregion. In this interview excerpt, the second in a series of two, Thrive discusses how strong partnerships led to the creation of these maps and continues to identify hot spots and spaces for new research.

In June, WLE-Mekong published a series of maps identifying a massive range of dams across the major rivers of the Greater Mekong Subregion. In this interview excerpt, the first in a series of two, WLE-Mekong's Kim Geheb points out hot spots and opportunities arising from these maps.

With the current drought in Southeast Asia, downstream Mekong countries are concerned that their water is being held up by large mainstream dams in China and Laos. There are, however, hundreds of small dams on Mekong tributaries, and the cumulative effect of these cannot be ignored.

I forget which dam it was, but the anecdote goes that during a public consultation for a major Brazilian dam, one of the dam's developers had quipped that you had to break eggs to make an omelette. To which one of the audience members had replied, "yeah, but it's our eggs and your omelette".